May 2008 (Medialink) - The Smart car is getting a lot of attention for its small size and style, and now it's earning impressive crash test ratings. In recent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests, the 2008 Smart Fortwo, the smallest car for sale in the US market, earned the top rating of good for front and side crash protection. Its seat/head restraints earned the second highest rating of acceptable for protection against whiplash in rear impacts.
Smart Fortwo is classified a microcar, meaning it's smaller even than minicars. Weighing about 1,800 pounds, the Smart is more than 3 feet shorter and almost 700 pounds lighter than a Mini Cooper. It weighs about a third as much as one of the heaviest vehicles the Institute has tested, the BMW X5, a midsize SUV. As the price of fuel climbs and tougher federal fuel economy requirements kick in, auto companies are expected to introduce more small vehicles to the market. The Smart is the smallest car the Institute ever has tested.
"The big question from consumers is, 'How safe is it?'", says Institute president Adrian Lund. "All things being equal in safety, bigger and heavier is always better. But among the smallest cars, the engineers of the Smart did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a very small package."
IIHS site:
http://www.iihs.org/
Produced for IIHSContact: Russ Rader, (703) 247-1500